Customer Reviews

Say It With Music

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I was first attracted to the Ray Conniff sound as an aspiring teen-age bass player, nearly forty years ago. My father, a professional guitarist and bassist, had taught me the virtues of dance-able tempos and rhythms and had also introduced me to the classics. Conniff's early album, "Concert in Rhythm, Vol. 1," brought these lessons together for me in a way only a musician can understand. His treatment of Tchaikovsky's "Swan Lake" theme was just plain breathtaking. When Conniff brought his crew to Charlotte, NC for a concert at the old Coliseum and opened up with "Swan Lake," my date thought I was going to run to the stage, grab the bass player's instrument, and play the job myself! "Say It with Music" fully deserves its resurrection and remastering to CD form. It presents a slightly different Conniff, exploring the Latin flavor that would soon become so popular with American listeners, dancers, and musicians. It also ventures into an area where many pop artists still fear to go, into the dark world of minor keys. The opener, "Besame Mucho," lays it on the line: an urgent, insistent rhythm pattern, crackling brass, dramatic crescendo to a lover's plea. Gershwin's "Summertime" fairly drips with old Charleston's heat but still produces that soothing, tomorrow's-gonna-be-OK feeling. Romberg, who? Open up the volume again, and try "Softly, As in a Morning Sunrise." You won't hear it again like this. It's powerful. If you don't see the sweep of the desert or the open ocean in your mind's eye, you should go back to Monday Night Football. Is it all sad, introspective stuff, you ask? No way. Check out "Brazil." Wowie! Let's go to Rio, honey! I wonder if anyone actually wrote "Brazil," or if it just grew during Carnaval. Conniff's arrangement flies. I do wish that individual musicians were named in the album notes. Conniff's bass trombone player has always been a sort of amen-corner for the band, or perhaps the shortstop. (A shortstop in a dance band??? Yeah. If you don't understand it, dont worry about it!) Get it folks, you'll Like "Say It with Music."

If you enjoy the melodies of George Gershwin and Irving Berlin done with a Latin beat then this is the Ray Conniff C.D. I personally recommend.The orchestra and voices blend together for an uptempo 12 tune set. "Night and Day" and "Deep Purple" are my favoites from Mr. Conniff. In later years, Conniff was a big star in Latin America and this is how his music was introduced to that part of the world. Hope you enjoy this C.D.!

there are some conniff recordings that fans come back to again and again. this 1960 effort is one of those that i've revisited many, many times over its 45 years.

"say it with music" was somewhat of a departure for ray in that he introduced his latin-flamenco guitar device with resounding success. these renditions prove conniff's mettle as a skillful and innovative arranger. the sound is big band, the production values are impeccable, and the rhythms are infectious. one of conniff's superior productions.

sidemen for this album include billy butterfield (his treatment of "summertime" is incredibly beautiful) and doc severinsen on trumpet.

to think that ray conniff's first full-fledged recording ('s wonderful) was a mere 3 years earlier than this particular album....what a tremendous evolution in the conniff sound in such a short period.

"say it with music" is consummate conniff!

beats the h... out of today's music

BESAME MUCHO gets the album off to a GREAT start. The other songs are all good but the arrangements are all very similiar and are probably intended for dancing.

A fun album it is though.

This album offers some really great songs with some of the best dance band arrangements I've ever heard. Conniff melds a lively latin tinged band with wordless voices singing harmony with trumpets and trombones. This isn't truly swing, and it's not the easy listening music that the Conniff sound later degenerated into, but it's a nifty fusion of the two, with emphasis on the swing. I can't recommend this highly enough.

Ray Conniff in "Latin Mode"; many latin american favorite songs with his distinctive flavor: BESAME MUCHO, BRAZIL, TEMTATION and classic great numbers like I'VE GOT YOU UNDER MY SKIN and NIGHT AND DAY.

I like Ray Coniff's Orchestra, I don't know why maybe its his selection of songs with very nice arrangements. He doesn't stand out as maybe Mantovani with the luscious strings and the use of accordian or a Stanley Black. Ray Coniff though has a unique style that is also enjoyable.

This is the real original RAY, the one that invented a new way of "using" an Orchestra: "Wordless Voices perfectly blended with Instruments in a unique wonderful sound".
I don't agree with Stephan, the arrangements are not at all repetitive, what is repetitive is the wonderful sound they generate. Consider they go back half a century and they still make us vibrate in unison today...immagine those days!

The Quality of the Recording and Remastering are simply outstanding, the best ever heard in a R.C. CD. By the way this CD is manufactured by COLUMBIA! I have not heard the SONY non-nice price, Sep 1991 version but are sure it can't be more than an infinitesimal better.
12 Wonderful songs all clean, bright, wide front, true STEREO arranged and played like only RAY can do. Would like to see more of these warm marvellous sun RAY's...there are many other beautiful RAY redentions (wordless of course!) that deserve this superb treatment.
One last minor thing; the price is simply astonishing.

If you can't live without warm sun RAYs you absolutely need this CD.

Ciao,
Franco

Ray Conniff demostrando que puede ser un fantastico arreglista de melodias latinas tan clasicas como BESAME MUCHO y TENTACION (que grandes interpretaciones al estilo Conniff); incluyendo canciones tan lindas como STRANGER IN PARADISE, la movidisima I'VE GOT YOU UNDER MY SKIN, grandes baladas como SOFTLY AS IN A MORNING SUNRISE, NIGHT AND DAY, la preciosas y melancolicas DEEP PURPLE y SUMMERTIME, y alegres piezas como TOO YOUNG y SAY IT WITH MUSIC; un gran disco infaltable en cualquier coleccion de todo amante de la musica!!